| US 7,468,972 B2 | ||
| Method and system for providing efficient data transmission based upon a contention protocol | ||
| William Walsh, Anaheim Hills, Calif. (US); Craig Schweinhart, Rockville, Md. (US); Abheek Saha, New Delhi (India); and Mark Abinante, Inglewood, Calif. (US) | ||
| Assigned to Hughes Network Systems, LLC, Germantown, Md. (US) | ||
| Filed on Feb. 22, 2001, as Appl. No. 9/789,969. | ||
| Claims priority of provisional application 60/220874, filed on Jul. 26, 2000. | ||
| Prior Publication US 2002/0114313 A1, Aug. 22, 2002 | ||
| Int. Cl. H04B 7/212 (2006.01) | ||
| U.S. Cl. 370—348 [370/347; 370/337; 370/329; 370/341; 370/432] | 30 Claims |
| 1. A method for transmitting packets over a shared communication channel that is partitioned into a plurality of transmission
slots, the method comprising:
determining a plurality of available transmission slots in a frame in a channel based on unused time slots in a previous frame;
transmitting one of the packets over one of the plurality of available transmission slots of the channel using a contention
protocol;
reserving an available transmission slot based on a previously successful transmission of said one packet on the same transmission
slot;
maintaining the reserved transmission slot until expiration of a predetermined timeout period; and
relinquishing said reserved transmission slot based on the expiration of said predetermined timeout period;
wherein the communication channel is provided by a plurality of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) frames used in a satellite
communication system; and
wherein the contention protocol in the transmitting step is persistent Aloha; and
the method further comprising:
designating one time slot per every sixth TDMA frame for contention transmission.
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